


Waiting...

by heroic_pants



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character(s), Prequel, i guess this is very self indulgent but isn't all fanfic, i made up a new name for jughead's mother i couldn't willingly use gladys i'm sorry, this is part of my other fic-universe i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 21:15:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11239371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroic_pants/pseuds/heroic_pants
Summary: Mary Andrews' favourite movie has been 'Waiting For Guffman' since 1996 - a bittersweet mockumentary about a bunch of bored small town people with unrealistic dreams of getting out of their small, shitty town.At 22, back from college with the intention to only stay as long as she has to save up money for grad school and not a second longer, it seems like a cautionary tale she's going to listen to. But as she gets older, as life begins to imitate art, she begins to love it for how achingly accurate it feels...(Kind of a companion piece/prequel to 'Winter Of Our Youth')





	Waiting...

**Author's Note:**

> So I was watching Waiting For Guffman for the first time in years, forgot how damn devastating it is, and it gave me some ideas. Apparently I care a lot more about Mary than I thought! (and Jughead's mother. I had to stop myself writing a whole other thing about her, i have THOUGHTS)
> 
> if you're reading the big one, this might colour some backstory in. if not, i still hope you like it!

**1996**

Mary was only back in town for a few months, to save money. Even Chicago was expensive to live in, and now she was finished college, it made more sense to come back home and live with her parents again.  
  


It was only till she went to law school. She was counting the days. Every dollar she’d saved from her college part-time jobs, every dollar of the partial scholarship she earned was going to her three years there, and it would all be worth it.  
  


After that she would look for work in Chicago, or she might even get into a law firm in New York. That would be something amazing.

  
It was partly amusing, partly horrifying how much it hadn’t changed in four years. How most of the people from school were still here, still the same, less cool now they couldn’t claim high school popularity as an achievement. Well, of course, except Hermione.  Someone said she was making famous friends in New York. She couldn’t say she was surprised.

  
She never had that many close friends in this town. It didn’t bother her that much, but it meant she was used to sitting at home reading than going out and driving around with friends, knocking over postboxes and getting wasted to terrible music – or whatever it was that the popular kids had done that was supposed to be fun. 

  
A certain Friday she decided to go out and take herself to the movies. There was a film out that she’d not expected the Bijou to get, but she knew the owner was always trying to get more arthouse cinema into the cultural wasteland that was otherwise the town.

  
She had really liked Spinal Tap – there had been a cinema in her neighbourhood when she had been at UC that had played older movies, it had been playing that one night she’d gone with some friends.

  
Walking up to the concession stand, she was about to ask the clerk for a ticket when she realised she recognised the lean, tall boy with the slicked back dark hair behind the window.

  
“Fred?” she asked, without even really meaning to. She didn’t know why this was such a surprise, it’s not like they had ever really been friends. But he and his friends had pretty much left her alone senior year, so she guessed she didn’t really carry any residual high school hatred of his anymore.

  
He peered at her for a second, and then smiled in surprise. “Oh wow…Mary O’Brien? I didn’t recognise you! No glasses anymore?” he said warmly.

  
Coming home had been a mixture of people either treating her exactly the same, or with unexpected friendliness. At least she knew what she was getting with the former.

  
“Uh – I wear contacts now sometimes,” she said, caught off-guard.

  
He smiled, genuinely, in a way that crinkled his eyes at the corners. She had seen this before, directed at other girls, and scoffed but she had to admit – privately – that she could understand why it had worked on them.  “Thought you were off at college somewhere across the country?”

  
She was surprised, because she was generally too unimportant to the high school ecosystem to even register in the rumour mill, but perhaps her parents had told him that she was at college out-of-state. They were very proud.

  
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, I was at University of Chicago. Just graduated.”

  
He looked awed. “That’s rad. I can’t believe you got to go. Did you like Chicago? Or are you back for good?”

  
She shook her head vehemently. “Oh no. Just until law school starts.”

  
He looked at her with something like respect. “Damn, law school? Guess all that studying paid off. That’s awesome.”

  
She couldn’t help smiling, sort of. He looked too genuinely happy for her to suspect it was some kind of trap, although she couldn’t totally silence that high school instinct.

  
“So, the Bijou. You like it?” she asked, to be polite, not really knowing how to phrase the question so it doesn’t sound condescending.

  
He nodded, slowly. “Yeah, I’m just working here to earn some extra money. Beats helping my dad out in the office, accountants are incredibly boring.” He chuckles a little.

  
“I’m taking some business classes at the community college over in Greendale, actually. Nothing as good as college, but it’s something.” He added, half proud, a bit self-deprecating.

  
She felt awkward that he had to say that, like she cared about whether someone could afford Harvard or community college, so she said nicely, “Hey, if it gets you where you need to go, it doesn’t really matter how you got there.”  
  


He smiled at her like he hadn’t ever heard it put that way. “I like that.”

  
He paused and then seemed to remember why she was there. 

  
“So, what’ll it be? Sorry for talking your ear off, I’m sure you don’t want to listen to me.” He half-laughed awkwardly. It was kind of endearing.

  
She blinked, remembering the movie. “Ah… _Waiting for Guffman."_  
  


He grinned, handing her ticket over. “How did I know? Let me know if it’s any good. I’m usually more of a Terminator/Aliens kind of guy though.”

  
She smiled. “I don’t think you’d like it then.”

  
As she went to go in, he said, “Nice to see you again, Mary.”

  
She looked back, surveying him suspiciously, and smiled. “Nice to see you again, Fred.”

**  
1999**

  
She kept seeing him around town when she came back for Christmases to visit her parents. They became – friendly, if not friends. Then, she gave him her new E-mail address so they could keep in touch. She loved law school, and her friends there, but it was nice seeing replies from him pop up in her virtual inbox.

  
Then her parents’ car slid on an icy road, and she had to go back to town for the funeral. He helped her go through her parents’ stuff and got his dad to figure out what she should do with the house. She wasn’t a specialist in property law, but his dad knew what she should do with the inheritance she gained.

  
He was so kind, and yet he managed to make her feel like he didn’t pity her. She’d graduated law school, but she was stuck – unable to go back to her carefree, stressful, exciting life in the city where no one had known her parents, but wishing she could leave this town, stuck in the house she grew up that held too many memories of her parents until she could sell it.

  
They started dating because he was kind and he made her laugh when she felt all alone in this town. It seemed like a dream when he asked her to move in with him – quickly,   
maybe, but small town relationships seemed to be like that. Here he was again, saving her, offering her escape from the physical pain her old home represented to her.

  
One of their first nights living together they rented a video of _Waiting For Guffman._ It had become one of her favourite films, for some reason. Especially since her parents’ deaths, she loved the bittersweet nature of it more. He said he didn’t understand whyshe would want to watch such a bleak “comedy”, but he liked the funnier bits leading up to the show. She decided to forget telling him her favourite part was the ending. It got her every time.

 

**2000**

  
They got married, in a nice small ceremony. The reception was almost as nice, bar Fred’s idiot best man (and long-time best friend) making a drunken, rambling toast. He’d never warmed to her the way Fred had, but he was always more of an asshole in school anyway. She’d ask Fred how they could be friends, and all he’d say is that they’d been best friends since they were kids and you don’t give up on people just because you grow older.

  
They put a down-payment on a house in a nice part of town, a pretty yellow weatherboard two-storey with a yard that backed onto the woods.

  
It was – lucky that Mr Patel at the solicitors needed a graduate around the time she’d been figuring out whether to stay. It was good pay, not as good as the big firms could offer, but it was good enough. Mr Patel was a good boss. He had a small daughter, and would sometimes say, “Do you think you’ll have your own? They change your life!” and she’d smile and nod in a non-committal way. She’d never even really thought about it.

  
Alice next door – and if she had known she’d been buying next door to a former high school mean girl of her year, she would never have signed the forms – already had one. Then again, Alice seemed to be doing this whole Stepford wife transformation where she wore twinsets now and waved, and occasionally made polite-sounding small talk over the back fence or if they saw each other going into their houses.

  
Mary had tried once or twice to put the past in the past like Alice insisted she wanted, but each time they’d hung out she couldn’t shake the feeling she was trying to learn things she shouldn’t, in the guise of a friend. The streaky heavy eyeliner and low cut tops might have gone but she sensed the high school gossip queen wasn’t buried very deeply under Alice’s perfect clothes and genial smile.

  
Fred was away one night meeting with a potential client for his new business. She turned the TV on and found that a channel was playing _Waiting For Guffman._ She watched it for twenty minutes, and then ran to the kitchen sink and threw up. It must have been the chicken, although she was certain she’d cooked it all the way through.

  
She threw up again, the next morning, and remembered Libby Mae talking about her healthy-Blizzard aspirations in a dingy Alabama Dairy Queen.

**  
2001**

  
She had a truce going with Fred’s best friend now – the both of them ran a business together, she’d resolved to at least be civil to him. He seemed to be doing his best not to antagonise her as well, although she got the sense they would never be good friends.

  
This was, perhaps, a shame because she had become good friends with his wife, Laura. She was a skinny, small woman, pale skin paler against dark eyes rimmed with dark smudgy kohl and long dark hair. She’d come to town full of secrets, even skinnier, with a haunted look in her eyes and accepted a job waitressing at Pop’s Diner. Of course, she’d fallen for the first guy with dark eyes and a dangerous smile to chase after her, and they were married not long after it.

  
She might never have become friends with her, had they not had to see each other out of obligation to their husbands’ friendship. But it was probably Alice’s ‘neighbourly’ remarks about that “trashy crack waitress” that made her determined to befriend Laura.

  
The other thing was that they were both pregnant, and it was nice to have someone going through the same thing with you. Like she was going to talk about cravings and stretch marks with Alice, who looked like she was about to give birth to her second child any day now, but was also someone that respected neither of them.

  
It was early June, and she was eight months pregnant to Laura’s three, and how little it showed on Laura’s tiny frame compared to how Mary felt like a whale ought to have made Mary dislike her – but she at only twenty-four, four years younger than Mary and both their husbands, looked up to Mary. Not in an irritating way, but in a kind way that made her feel like something other than the girl with glasses who studied too much, the way her friends in Chicago had before she lost contact with them.

  
She’d mentioned _Waiting For Guffman_ a few days ago when they’d been talking about their favourite movies and Laura had decided she really wanted to see it, even when Mary had warned her that it wasn’t exactly feel-good. Mary’s mother had used to say to her with a smile, _Mary mary, quite contrary._ That was how she was. But Laura had said she wanted to know more about film, the sort of cultural things Mary knew about, instead of just whatever slasher film or comedy was playing at the drive-in or the Bijou.

  
She had finally bought a video of it, although now apparently there was some new thing they were all supposed to replace their videos with.

  
Laura, surprisingly, watched it avidly – she laughed in the funny parts, but she was glued to the end. Especially the scenes with Libby Mae. They watched her talking in the Dairy Queen in Alabama. 

  
Suddenly, Laura said – in her accent that sometimes suggested a southern twang, although that might have just been picked up along the way – “I was going to go to New York once. I was heading up this way but I ran out of money.”

  
Mary wondered what to say. She wanted to say she sympathised, more than that, she got it – but she didn’t know how.

  
Laura smiled her best making-the-best-of-it smile. “It’s lucky that trucker was coming through your town, or I might have never even got to New York State. And when I saw that the diner he dropped me off at was hiring, it just felt like...fate.”

  
“Yeah,” Mary said, evenly. “You know I wanted to work at a law firm in New York? Or Chicago. I even went through college and law school there.”

  
Laura looked at her, interested. “Wow. I just – wanted to have fun. I wanted to sing in coffee shops. Maybe get some rich guy to fall madly in love with me and marry me.”

  
Mary laughed, and so did Laura.

  
They looked at the screen now rolling the credits.

  
“Well, if I’d got to New York I wouldn’t have met you. Or have this baby growing inside me.” Laura said warmly.

  
Mary nodded, and looked at her distended stomach. “I guess.”

  
As if in response, her much more grown fetus kicked.

  
“Sorry,” she whispered, to both of them.

**  
2002**

  
It was mid-January.

  
He just cried all the time and she was so fucking tired.

  
She hadn’t seen Laura as much, because they were both dealing with infants and Laura’s was only about a month old. She’d gone to see her in the hospital, but something about the way Laura looked at the tiny – smaller than hers, she didn’t imagine they could come out that small – child in her arms made her make some excuses, wish her the best and leave. Fred had asked her why they left so quickly, and she snapped something at him, unfairly. He left it after that.

  
She was doing that a lot lately. Snapping at him. Finding reasons to be angry, and the worst thing was she knew it wasn’t him, really, but he just took it.

  
Without Laura, without her parents, there was no one in town she trusted to talk to. She couldn’t explain to Fred because it wasn’t a bad mood – unless a bad mood stayed with you for months. Of course, she knew what it sounded like, but she couldn’t let herself think it. Even horrid Alice looked, when she saw her out and about, tired but like she would murder anyone who got between her and her two angelic-looking daughters.  

  
Why would it be that? It’s not like she hated the baby. They’d named him after her father – Fred’s idea, and it had made her cry, although that was partly the exhaustion – and she knew she had loved him from the moment she saw him. But some gremlin had crept into her brain in the months since his birth, and now it felt like all he ever did was cry and everyone else had moments where they could just adore their baby and feel blessed with the “miracle of life”. But all she did was snap and cry over the most ridiculous things.

  
She missed work. It was alright for Fred, he could go to work for several hours a day, and she couldn’t hate him for it because it was helping to put food on the table, and keep them stocked with endless nappies. But her days were a constant, sleepless blur of the baby either crying because he was hungry, crying because he needed his nappy changed, or just staring at her like a little bug-eyed alien. Sometimes she didn’t recognise him as the child she’d gone through so much pain to bring into the world, and it was only that they shared the same vivid hair colour that reminded her. Sometimes she fantasised that she’d never come back, that somehow her parents had never driven in bad weather, and this wasn’t really her life.

  
Then she felt worse because the baby deserved a better mother. The mother that she’d been preparing to be before this gremlin moved into her brain and turned her into something else. Thinking about that made her more upset, and she found she could barely leave the house.

  
Fred stepped up, to give her a rest. He was a good father. It almost made her more upset, because she could almost see that he didn’t recognise her. This wasn’t the woman he married. This wasn’t the person he’d been excited to raise a child with. Sometimes she just drove out to the river and cried. Everytime she left the house she checked to see if Alice was around, because she didn’t have the energy to hide how she felt and she couldn’t bear Alice knowing this about her.

  
One day she drove off while Fred had agreed to mind the baby, and found herself at the cemetery.

  
She sat in front of the graves of Moira and Archibald O’Brien, and couldn’t summon a single tear. This was even more terrifying because she’d been crying at the drop of a hat for months. She cried when she knocked over things, ridiculous as that was but now she couldn’t cry. That was the final insult.

  
“Thought you might be here.” A quiet voice with a vague twang said behind her.

  
She turned around and had never been so glad to see Laura in her life. “How?”

  
“I know you come here to think. Come here.”

  
They hugged for a long time, and then she found herself telling it all to Laura.

  
Laura nodded and listened sympathetically, and then took a backpack off her back.

  
“I know I’m not smart like you, and I really hope I’m not being rude – but I thought something like this might be up with you. I know you’ve got your little one, but I’ve just been worried that I haven’t seen you in so long. There was a woman, in my hometown, who gave birth and she felt like you…so I went to the library and did some research.”  Laura said, shyly. She opened the bag and pulled out some books and printed articles from the Internet.

  
“The librarian helped me find the web stuff, I’m no good with computers.”

  
This was what made her cry.

  
“Oh, I’m so sorry Mary, I’m an idiot, I’m sorry –“ Laura began immediately, until Mary hugged her.

  
“Thank-you. I haven’t had anyone to talk to about this, and I just _miss them so much._ Especially Mom. She never even got to…see him, and how  I am supposed to – how can I be as good as her – she was supposed to – to teach…” her words dissolved into a stream of tears.

  
Laura looked at her caringly. “I know it’s not the same as having a dead mom you loved, and I’m so sorry that happened – but hey, I have a rocky relationship with mine, I got out of the house as soon as I could and now I’m afraid to tell her she’s a grandma. I’m –“ she took a deep breath, her eyes wide. “ – _terrified_ that I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I don’t want my baby to hate me when he grows up – but you…I’m not worried about you. You’re gonna do amazing. You look out for me all the time – remember all the important things you told me while I was pregnant? I didn’t know I shouldn’t smoke, and you were really nice about that. You didn’t make me feel stupid. That kid already has a brilliant mom.”

  
“Thank – thanks Laura. I’m sorry I’ve been so distant,” she hiccoughed.

  
Laura smiled, wrapping an arm around her. “There’s no shame in talking to someone. In getting some help. If you need it. And I’m here.”

  
She nodded, speech failing her.

  
“And also apparently the Bijou is playing _Waiting For Guffman_ this afternoon, what are the chances?” Laura said slyly.

  
Mary looked at her sideways. “What did you do?”

  
Laura affected innocence. “Nothing! Except Fred might have introduced me to his old manager, so I could bribe him with free coffee for a month. So, really, Pop’s the one to thank.”

  
Mary laughed, crying, but mostly happily this time. “Wait, who’s watching _your_ baby?”

  
Laura scoffed. “His dad can handle him for an afternoon. It’s definitely his turn.”

  
*

  
When she got home from the movie she sat down and had the first honest conversation with Fred she’d had since the baby had been born.

  
She told him she wasn’t ok right now, but she could get better. That she was going to. She cried. He cried, maybe out of relief. She felt like she recognised a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

  
And the baby wasn’t screaming. She looked in on him sleeping, and if she didn’t feel like she had exhausted her tear reserves for the entire year today, she might have cried again.

  
She was too wary of waking him up to go closer or say it aloud to him but she thought, _I’m going to get better for you. I’m going to be a great mom for you._

**  
2004**

  
It was just after Laura’s second baby, a girl that their husbands fell out. Supposedly, hers was stealing from the company – saying he had to do it to feed his family, which was now bigger than theirs.

  
She only knew that Fred had agreed to bail him out of jail when he got caught on the construction site they were working on, and that the bail was the deal for buying him out of the company. And that he’d been in a downward spiral with alcohol for a few years now.

  
She had become sick of giving Laura advice when things were really bad, only for her to ignore it or pretend like she’d overstated it afterwards. Not to mention, Laura seemed to be getting into drinking almost as badly these days.

  
It was months and months of getting panicked phone calls from Laura, and talking her down and advising her for an hour, and every conversation they had these days was about how she knew that situation was bad – and then when she thought they’d reached a course of action, some way to move forward out of the painful situation, the next time Mary saw her she would say that he apologised and it was ok now, and things had changed. They never did.

  
She was happy to listen to her, when she owed her so much, but it was also both frustrating and emotionally draining to keep listening and knowing she’d never change the situation.

  
Laura had driven over in a panic, and Mary had let her in immediately.

  
“Is Fred here?” she asked anxiously.

  
“No, he’s out. Laura, are you ok?” she asked, concerned. Her breath smelt like spirits.

  
“No, Mary, you have to ask Fred not to fire him. Please, we can’t lose his income.  I barely make enough waitressing, I can’t support all of us just on my wages.” She asked desperately.

  
“I – I’ll see what I can do, but it’s not my company, Laur – I don’t have a say in it, really,” she said uncomfortably.

  
“Thank you, thankyou, Mary.” She said gratefully.

  
"Have you been drinking, Laura? Did you drive here? I think I should call you a cab, or maybe drive you home?” Mary asked, concerned.

  
Laura looked hurt. “I had like – one drink to steady my nerves, before coming here to – beg you and your _lordly_ husband to not destroy my family, I’m under a lot of stress – how dare, dare you judge me?”

  
It definitely hadn’t been just one.

  
“I’m not judging you! But you could have hurt yourself, or others driving here, Laur!” Mary said, worried.

  
“Don’t you dare look down your nose at me, Mary!” Laura slurred, raising her voice.

  
“For god’s sake, Laur, Archie’s asleep!” Mary scolded her in hushed tones. “I think I need to get you home before you wake up the whole neighbourhood.”

  
Laura looked at her, eyes wet and said it. “Oh will your new pal Alice hear? So you’re _such a great mother_ now? You always pretended you didn’t think you were better than me, but now – now I get it. You don’t need me now!”

  
Mary felt like she’d been slapped. She’d been putting up with a lot for this friendship lately, but this – this was the sort of thing she would have expected if she’d crossed Alice, but it hurt like losing a limb from Laura. Alice had actually kind of proved to be at least a good mother, and had been actually kind of happy to let Archie play with her little girl that was his age. Hanging out with her had honestly gotten to be less weird than whenever she saw Laura lately.

  
“Well at least Alice hasn’t thrown my worst moments back in my face, Laura. Get out of my house.” She said, icily, shaking.

  
Laura looked like she had regretted the words the second she spoke them, but she set her chin, and stormed out.

  
She sat in shock, on the couch, staring at that old green lamp, and the TV cabinet until she saw how messy it was. She had to clean it right now. She obsessively put DVDs and videos in cases, until in her haste she snagged part of the tape of a video.

  
Turning it on its side, she read the name. _Waiting For Guffman._

  
She let out an angry sob, first trying to force the tape back in and then, in a fit of rage, pulling it all out so it was definitively unfixable. Who cared? She hated that movie.

**  
2011**

It hadn’t been easy, and ‘fixed’ was a simplistic term to apply, but she had over the last decade done what she had promised and gotten better at least, and tried hard every day to be a good mother. Regular therapy visits, and a few years on anti-depressants had actually helped. She thought she was doing ok, at least. Her son looked at her like she was the light of his young life though, so she couldn’t be doing too badly.   

  
And she loved him so much. She almost didn’t want him to become a teenager, and just stay this sweet, rosy-cheeked boy whose hair was the same red as hers. And her father’s.

  
He sat in the passenger seat as they drove to the supermarket.

  
A familiar song from her childhood came on the radio. She loved this song.

  
She’d played it for him before. He surprisingly remembered the chorus and sang along with her.

  
“Come on Eileen…” they sang, constantly forgetting the next line. “At this moment, you mean everythiiiiiiiing.”

  
Archie beamed, nodding his head to the song. “I love this one! I wish I could do this!”

  
She smiled at him. “Maybe you should!” she joked.

  
*

Fred and her were arguing more, though. It wasn’t like Laura’s relationship with the screaming and throwing beer bottles at each other, more like hushed arguments in the kitchen over various things – money, what Fred had said he’d fix and hadn’t, her taking on more responsibility at work.

  
They tried to never do this around Archie. On that front, they were a team, committed to making his childhood happy and without danger.

  
Even though they didn’t talk to Laura’s family much anymore, except on the few occasions they bumped into one of them in town, Archie had managed to meet and befriend their son about two years ago, and they were thick as thieves. The other boy was his physical opposite, dark haired and bony-thin, all sharp edges and quick-wit, even for a ten-year old boy.

  
He looked so much like Laura. And his father, but with less of a twisted smile. He often a glimmer of something haunted in his eyes, something she would hope not to see a child’s eyes. Sometimes she wondered if she should ask him what was going on at home but – she was afraid to interfere. She feared they’d done enough to hurt his family.

  
*

  
She had finally bought it again, this time on DVD. It didn’t make her think of Laura so much, except for Libby Mae. But she’d always been a strange kind of person who liked things that made her sad, and this movie never failed to pack a punch at the end, so she found herself watching it once every year or two, since she’d rebought it in 2008.

  
One weekend, when Fred was interstate for a weekend construction conference, and Archie was supposed to be sleeping over at his best friend’s house, she realised she had no work to catch up on and the prospect of doing laundry all night depressed her – so she put on the DVD so she’d have something familiar in the background while she did it.

  
“Looks like it’s just you and me, buddy.” She said to the sleepy yellow-furred dog curled up on his bed in front of her.

  
She heard the door open and slam shut. She paused her folding and saw Archie stomp in, looking annoyed.

  
“What are you doing back, I thought you were going to –“ she says, already panicking that something really bad had happened at their house. She shouldn’t have allowed it; it wasn’t in a good area.

  
“We had a fight. He’s mean.” Archie cut her off darkly, going to give the dog a pat. The dog immediately perked up.  

  
She looked at him sympathetically. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  
He shook his head, and looked at the TV. “What are you watching?”

  
“My favourite movie. Do you want to watch it with me, then?” she offered, and he brightened a little.

  
“Alright,” he said, dropping his backpack on the ground and settling himself on the couch next to her.

  
*

“I don’t get it – why didn’t she go to New York? Why did she go to Alabama?” Archie asked her, confused as the credits rolled.

  
She looked at him, and thought it was probably too subtle to explain to him. She would fight anyone who called him unintelligent, but she knew he had trouble applying himself at school. She suspected he just learned differently. He might not grasp the higher subtleties of life at ten years old, but he cared so much about her, his Dad, his friends, the puppy they’d got him when he was six that was now a full grown dog sleeping in front of them, and she knew grown adults without ten percent of that emotional intelligence.

  
“Her Dad got out of prison, and she felt she had to stay with him.” She tried to explain, simply.

  
Archie frowned. “That’s sad. I don’t think…I don’t think I like that. Why do you like it?”

  
She sighed, trying to think of a simple explanation. “Not all sad things are things you should avoid. Sometimes it’s nice to connect with sad things.”

  
He looked at her, suddenly like he was worried. “Are you sad, mom? Is it because I didn’t clean my room before I left, because I swear I was going to do that the minute I got home, I’m sorry –“

  
She shook her head, smiling. “No, of course not. I mean, I want you to clean your room up. But I’m happy. I’m fine.”

  
He hugged her. “Good.”

  
Fred had almost found it too funny to punish him for bad language when during a fight, he’d come out with his favourite line from the movie, “Well, then, I just HATE you... and I hate your... ass... FACE!”

  
“You did this,” He scolded her, but he was laughing.

**  
2014**

  
She wasn’t happy here though.

  
She had been trying for about fifteen years to be happy in this town that she had never really enjoyed growing up in. She never had wanted to stay in this town, with all its memories and ghosts. Even before her parents died, she’d never wanted to stay here. In fact, if they hadn’t she may never have.

  
But she’d tried, she’d tried to be a good wife and she’d gotten the help she needed to be a good mother to her son, and all she could see was the rest of her life stretched out before her – the next twenty years at the unexciting law offices of Patel & Zimmerman, having work friendships that were never close, polite relationships with other kids’ mothers who she’d either gone to school with and who had never liked her or who she had nothing in common with. She’d had no close friends since Laura, and Alice had been warm for a while, and then pulled away again. She was sick of trying to figure out what her game was so their relationship had reverted to surface-level polite neighbourliness.

  
And it was becoming sadly, much clearer to her, that she and Fred weren’t in love. Maybe they had been once, surely they had been. It can’t have been just that he helped her through two traumatic periods, they had been in love.

  
But they weren’t compatible. They barely had anything in common – he wasn’t unintelligent, he was smart enough but they didn’t like the same kind of films, or books, or even music. They couldn’t really talk about work in a way that would interest either of them.

  
And she had suspected for years that he really just wished he was back in high school, being one of the most popular kids in school, with his best friend and the girl he liked, and whatever was going there – he’d never really let it go. He’d tried, like her, to do adult things – get married, buy a house, have a business. But they’d gotten married too quick, and there was something, or someone, or maybe more than one, that he’d never gotten over.

  
Then she’d gotten an opportunity to go to Chicago again for the first time since she’d left, for a week-long conference her bosses asked her to attend, and she fell in love with the city again. She’d known, sort of for years that she was wasting away in that small town but only distantly, like she’d forgotten what the outside world was like. They never had enough money with raising a child and paying off the house and everything to take a family vacation overseas, or even really in other cities. They’d occasionally gone for dates in New York, but not very often – especially not in the last few years.

  
She forgot how much she missed Chicago. For the first time in fifteen years she felt stimulated. She missed the towers and the theatres and the Museum of Natural History.

  
She visited the Millennium Park, which had gone up after she’d left. She remembered how she used to get coffees and walk by the harbour.

  
She even caught up with some old friends who seemed to have the same email addresses they’d had over ten years ago. They treated her so warmly and told her about their lives and their children, and she showed them pictures of hers.

  
On Sunday night, her last night in town – the conference had ended on Friday but she had wanted the extra time to explore – she flicked through channels aimlessly in her fairly nice hotel room. She felt guilty to admit it but it was a joy to have a nice space to herself for a week and not have to do anyone’s laundry or find the toilet seat up or make breakfast for anyone.

  
She flicked through the channels and found to her surprise, _Waiting for Guffman._ It was strangely like a comforting hug for such a sad movie usually, but this time she watched it and thought about having to go home tomorrow, and cried silently.

  
*

She got home early on the day she was supposed to get home, and no one was home. She saw the house with different eyes. Left to their own devices for a week, predictably, the boys had let the washing up pile up and takeout containers littered the kitchen island. Every room seemed like a mess. Archie’s room looked, as her dad used to say, “Like a bomb had hit it”.

  
She almost decided that she’d better clean it up, and then she decided to take a drive instead. So she sat in her car, and listened to an old Lucinda Williams album, and smoked.

_  
Can’t find a damn thing, in this mess. Nothing’s where I left it before. When I get home, this room better be picked up, car wheels on a gravel road._

  
She had given up smoking a little before becoming pregnant, but recently had picked it back up. It was just a nice way to relieve pressure without having to get drunk.

  
She waited till when she had been supposed to get back and knocked on the door. They were there now, looking thrilled to see her. When she came back in, they’d cleaned up a bit – the house wasn’t spotless but it was much better than it had been. She hugged them both, because she had missed them, and at least they’d cleaned up. 

  
Fred took them out to dinner to celebrate.

  
*

A few days later, she told Fred about a job offer she’d been offered by a representative of a big Chicago law firm. She only meant to bring it up casually, but somehow it became a fight. It became a bad fight.

  
Things were said. She said that she’d tied herself to his plans for fifteen years, why couldn’t they make a change, finally leave this soul-destroying town. He said that she was selfish, that their lives and livelihoods were here and they couldn’t just uproot themselves because she was bored.

  
She told him, shaking, that she wasn’t bored she was depressed, and tired of living there.

  
He asked her why she’d never told him this, and she said that he hadn’t wanted to know it. That they both knew they’d wanted different things.

  
They kept their voices low, but when she went to talk to Archie his room was empty and his window was open.

  
She hoped against hope he hadn’t only gone to see his friend next door. The thought of Alice knowing about the state of their marriage turned her stomach.

  
She called him eight times until he finally picked up, and Laura’s son told her quietly that they were planning to sleep out in the old treehouse and wouldn’t be back until morning, and it was probably a good idea to give him space. She wanted to argue, but in a way she was glad that their generally happy, carefree son wasn’t here for the fighting.  

  
*

  
She took the job and she asked Archie to come with her, but she knew he would say no. He never had a reason to hate this town, and he loved his dad and his life here too much to just leave.

  
Even then, he made sure she knew he wasn’t taking sides, just that Dad needed him, but he couldn’t wait to visit her. He looked at her like he was trying to be strong, but he was thirteen, he wasn’t a good liar. She almost broke down when she hugged him goodbye, and she forced herself not to look back as the cab pulled away.

**  
2019**

She had tried to keep up a schedule of calling her only son every week or two, and flying him out when she could. Work was very demanding, exciting but demanding and there was David, as well, so she rarely had the time for random little visits, but they talked and saw each other either on holidays or birthdays.

  
She was even on good terms with Fred, now. They had a fairly amicable divorce, and might even be tentative friends – at least in the sense of two people who are willing to be friendly for the sake of their shared child.

  
“So I have some news to tell you, honey. It’s big news.” She said nervously.

  
“Go ahead.” He said, over the line.

  
“Well you know David?” she asked. A stupid question, because of course he did.

  
“I’ve met your boyfriend, Mom.” He replied.

  
She laughed, nervously. “We’re getting married in seven months, and I’d like you to be there at the wedding. It’s not going to be a big thing, but it would mean a lot if you could come. It’s over a long weekend in the Fall, so you should be able to…”

  
He didn’t say anything for a moment then, “That’s great, Mom! I’m so happy for you! I’ll definitely be there!”

  
She was thrilled that he took the news so well.

  
*

They were falling out of touch, though. Every time she’d seen him since she left town he looked older, taller, bigger. She almost didn’t recognise him. 

  
“Oh, I thought you didn’t like that girl?”

  
“That was a long time ago, Mom.”

  
To teenagers everything seemed like a long time ago, but it couldn’t have been more than two years ago.

  
They missed calls. Work piled on. A new marriage demanded even more than a lived-in one.

  
Sometimes she’d be walking down the street and see something, and think, _I have to tell Archie about that._ But more often than not she felt like she was just talking to his voicemail, which she was sure he never checked.

  
Sometimes she walked past somewhere she’d taken him on one of his visits to the city, and viscerally felt a pang of loss in her chest. He’d liked the “weird bean sculpture thing” – she couldn’t look at it without thinking about that day.

  
Sometimes she wondered why she hadn’t fought harder to get him to come with her, if there had been any way to get him to, any bribe?

  
* 

“You’re going where? Your dad said yes to this?” she said, kind of in shock.

  
“Yes, mom! I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen me but I’m eighteen now, and I have the right to go where I want. I just thought you might be happy for me.” He snapped back over the line.

  
“I’m not saying – these people are dangerous, are you sure you can trust them?” she said, exasperated.

  
“More than I can you, apparently.” He said, and hung up.

  
She didn’t know when their conversations had gotten so confused and filled with tension. She had a feeling that it was about something deeper, but he’d stopped telling her the deeper things. She knew it was her fault, but she didn’t know how to fix it.

  
She called Fred. “Really? Los Angeles? By himself? What the hell are you thinking?”

  
Fred sounded tired. “Oh so I was supposed to deny the kid this opportunity? For what reason, Mary? He’s not alone, and the record label guy was pretty smart and with it. It’s not like I let him join a cult.”

  
“He’s so young! And what about college?”

  
“Really? What degree was he supposed to get? You know he was never that keen on college. Or you would, if you’d called lately.”

  
“So you looked over the contract then?” She snapped.

  
“Yes, and I know I’m not the legal genius you are but I’m not a total idiot. They’re not trying to set him up.” He replied, irritably.

  
“Great.”

  
“Great.”

  
She hung up.

  
She had texted David earlier about an irritating client, “Why do some people have to chew gum loudly, while they’re talking to you? Why?”, and her phone dinged with a response.

  
“Yeah, maybe it’s a zen thing – like how many babies can fit in a tire? ;)”

  
She smiled sadly. He loved the movie too, and occasionally quoted lines to cheer her up. Today it made her remember that whether you got out of the shit town or not, there would always be a price.  

**  
2024**

_  
“Too-rah-loo-rah-too-rah-loo-rye-aye, And we can sing just like our fathers”_

  
An old song playing in the supermarket reminds her of her son out of nowhere. Thinking about him is a low-level hurt and then out of nowhere a stabbing pain like this song, that reminds her of a happy little boy who looked at her like she’d never do any wrong, and sung along to this with her.

  
She barely ever gets to see Archie – he’s even busier than her these days. She wishes that was the only reason why.

  
They never had any kind of serious falling out, which is almost worse. She calls him maybe once a year now on his birthday, and he answers and they have a short, stilted conversation in which he tells her approximately nothing of substance in his life, and she keeps him updated on the basics but knows he doesn’t really want to hear about her husband, so she keeps the David-talk to a minimum.

  
He’s so distant to her now she thinks she might never get him back. And if she wasn’t so afraid to really talk she might try to go to see him, but he travels all the time and she has no idea of his schedule. She hasn’t talked to Fred in years, and certainly isn’t going to ask him about it. He’s not a particularly gloat-y person, but she couldn’t stand it.

  
And not to mention, she knows her son doesn’t want to see her. He’s mad, he’s been mad about something for years, and she gets it but also she’s hurt by it. Somewhere along the line he stopped not taking sides.

  
And the last time he came through Chicago with his bandmate, a year ago now maybe, he had a very awkward dinner with her and David, and then excused himself saying he had to be on the road early tomorrow. Again, he’d changed without her looking, dark circles under his eyes, scrubby beard growth, new tattoos creeping up his arms every time she saw him. She’d never liked tattoos, but even she knew she’d long ago lost the right to criticise him for them.

  
She and David are walking past the old classics-playing theatre when he sees what’s on.

  
“I haven’t seen this on the big screen since what, 1996? Let’s go in!” He says excitedly, and she agrees.

  
The ending still packs a punch. She’s out but like them, she’s had to give something unforeseen up.

  
Her phone rings, and it’s him. She rushes out of the theatre to answer. She’s surprised until she realises she thought it was the 8th July but it’s actually the 9th .

  
“Heeey Mom!” he says, and he sounds drunk already. She checks her watch. 9:30pm, which is 7:30 in Los Angeles. She really dropped the ball on this one.

  
“Hey-“

  
“You know, you don’t need to call me on my birthday…I’m at my own party, so I probably wouldn’t have heard your call. If you had called, hahaa…whatever just call at Christmas, that’s easy to rember – remem – remember…I’ll say it for you: happy 23rd birthday to me!”

  
“Hon –“ she tries to break into his drunk ramblings. The background music is loud, and he keeps breaking off to laugh at other unknown people.

  
“I hope David’s fine. Give my love to Chicago, I fucking _love_ Chicago. _Sweet Home Chicaagooo._ Enjoy your life, guess I’ll talk to you in a year. I _fucking_ love my life, don’t worry…oh, I think I spot an ex I gotta go, byeee Mom, good talk –“ he babbles, drunk and clearly upset, and he hangs up.

  
She stares at her phone till David finds her.

  
He takes one look at her and hugs her.  

  
*

  
Over a drink back at home she sits on the balcony of their comfortable, roomy apartment that faces the harbour from only a few blocks away, and contemplates the awful irony of the situation.

  
This was all she ever wanted her life to be at twenty-two.

  
But she had never wanted this. She had wanted once, to live in this city or a different one, and to be a lawyer. Maybe get married.

  
Kids had never come into it, really.

  
But even with everything, all the difficulty she had in transitioning into motherhood, she had tried so hard for him, and she loved him, and she never wanted to hurt him. She’d hoped he’d never hate her. But he’d eventually picked a side, he had his whole world and friends, and apparently a great relationship with Fred, and his new wife – that it was the woman who he’d probably been somewhat in love with since high school hurt less than the thought that she was probably stepping in to mother her stepson, what a nice little image. And yet, it was borne out of her decisions. But she had _tried._

  
Christopher Guest should make a bittersweet mockumentary about the mess she’d made of life over and over – the smart woman who couldn’t manage not to do stupid things.

  
The city was really beautiful at night.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, Fred did attend Greendale Community College. I am now choosing to believe they exist in the same universe.


End file.
